Sunday 3 April 2011
Progress on Ulverston's main street procedes at less than a snail's pace
It's now a fortnight since we requested a meeting with our county councillor James Airey.
Progress on the work down Market street in the last fortnight has been extremely slow.
At this rate of progress, the work will not be completed by April 29th the day the Flag Festival is due to start which features this very street.
Of the festivals in the town, this is the one that our traders feel brings the most benefit to the town; others certainly have an impact but for the most part result in little trade and in the case of the Dickensian Festival can cause considerable disruption to shop trade.
Many of the traders are deeply upset with the casual approach by Amey towards getting the work done quickly and the apparent lack of concern from the County Highways Department.
Questions are being asked as to how this contract was set up and whether there is a penalty clause in Amey's contract for overrunning.
Was even a completion date agreed?
The traders want answers and their politicians to take action.
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19 comments:
Doe's it really matter how long it takes them to finish the job,it will look good when it's done.If your that concerned about it and think you can do better why not go and help them and show them how to do there job.
Another moron.
When will "Anonymous" start talking some sense?
The Flag Festival brings in more business to local traders than any other festival? I know who the moron is here.
Dave
Wow we have a Dave.
I'll explain -
tomorrow
It's a view held by many of the traders in the town!
Let's examine the festivals held in Ulverston.
Some would think that the Dickensian with all its crowds would benefit shopkeepers.
Have you talked to them?
Yes they see the potential customers in their thousands; but are they in a mood to enter a shop and concentrate on a serious purchase?
The attractions are all on the streets - outside the shops. A few like cafes benefit,but even then people want to be where the action is and there's plenty of food and drink - outside where the stalls are - Mulled wine does a roaring trade.
The Car Parks benefit but then this income goes to pay for attractions brought into the town like the barrel organs and old vehicles.
Even the local donkey rides round the Gill suffered this year because of the commercial fairground attractions put there.
No crowds will only benefit a very few of the inside establishments in the town.
The same is true of the Lantern Parade held in the evening - the pubs and eating places benefit, that's all.
Carnival day again attracts crowds again - outside and mostly local people who shop at other times.
Even Printfest attracts few actual shoppers: the visitors have come to be in one place - The Coro - all they want is there. Sunday is dead in the rest of the town. One hopes that they discover Ulverston as a place to return to on its own account. Hence the bevy of twenty four Flags that will be outside this year. Yes Flags (and art) really works.
No, because the Flag Festival is over a fortnight and adds a strong feel good factor - appreciated by many these days -it encourages relaxed browsing INSIDE the shops and purchases result.
Talk to the shopkeepers if you're not convinced.
Mr Dellow,
You are obviously an expert in estimating and pricing a civil engineering contract.
If so you would see that when a job such as this is undertaken it is very hard to see through the setts and work out what is underneath. If you cared to look the setts below the junction are of an uneven size which slows down progress due to hiving to sort them and relay i a more even method.
AMEY are doing an extremely good job. So what if it is taking a lot longer. The finished result will give Ulverston a top class surface to the market area which will lats for many years to come.
Speculate now to profit later!
Or does that not make sense.
It is more economic to remove all this area and relay than to patch up and have to come back in at a later date.
For once shut up and take a look at the bigger picture.
If you are so ggod at local politics how come you are not a member of the local or county council?
An extremely frustrated bystander .
James Airey has agreed to meet us sometime this week.
He will come with Peter Hornby who is also the County Councillor for this area.
Dear Frustrated,
I sympathise with the emotion.
As it happens I am being advised by John BT who has experience in the field of civil engineering contracts.
Many of us are amazed that there seems to be no penalty clause in the contact agreed with the County Highways Department for the work overrunning. Neither does there appear an agreed completion date.
We agree that the quality of work is excellent but this will only show up in the next five years when the surface has been thoroughly tested.
By contrast the surface about to be dug up has the advantage of demonstrating that it has worked very well for more that thirty years.
Had the standard of work been up to that of recent work by Balfour Beattie for United Utilies located opposite the Westmorland Gazette office then there would be no need fot this present work by Amey to be done at all.
It is only because of the negligent supervision of Cumbria County Highways, under Nick Raymond and presumably others, of the work done when digging up this road surface that has led to the present work needing doing at all.
Mr Dellow I do think you should pursue this matter with vigour, as i'm sure you will. My husband and i have spent much time over the past 15 years with the Cocama people, a small tribal grouping in the Amazon rainforest. They subsist by making and selling wooden sculptures which they paint and sell to tourists in the nearby towns.
They are a poor people but incredibly artistically gifted,also producing blankets and, rather bizarrely, pot holders made out of dried tarantulas!!
On our return to England we resolved to help them by opening an outlet for their goods. After much travelling around we came to Ulverston and decided this was the place as it seemed to offer an ideal and sympathetic market for these people.
BUT (big but!) if this is the way that the local council treats traders, virtually closing them down and/or making them inaccessible for weeks on end we are now not so sure.
We so want to stay here and help our Amazon friends and also enrich (hopefully) Ulverston's truly vibrant arts scene. So, all power and luck to you with your efforts.
Please get in touch Patsy.
I've a market stall that could be used to start with. I would help test the market.
Your ideas would add a boost to our struggling market.
I've also got cheap access to a shop on Market Street
Couldn't agree more with Patsy Geoff. Cutting a long story short my partner and I want to open A Mayan themed vegan cafe-bar, fair trade Guatemalan coffees, Mayan chocolate stews (yes, there is such a thing), Honduran breads etc etc. Ulverston is, we think, crying out for this but why should we when the council think so little of established traders that they visit this huge inconvenience on them. I hope Patsy gets back in touch, maybe then you might convene a group to discuss the future of alternative/ethnic trade in an already quirky environment. (If you're not too busy that is!!)
the Patsy Morris post has got to be a wind up hasn't it ? probably one of those swines from knowhere !!!
It is morally perverse that people want to abuse and mock a 75 year old man.
It was the old people that said "Dulce et Decorum Est Pro Paria mori"
In 2 wars and for what so the vile and vulgar can abuse them in their twilight years.
Sorry Izzy but i honestly cant see that kind of tack selling in our town.The towns full of crap shops and cafes we need something like primark that will bring people into the town
On the contrary .
I believe that Ulverston's attraction is its number of quirky shops like Smith and Harrisons where you can still buy a pound of nails and Dolly pegs.
Every town is becoming like the next with the large chain stores on the high street.
Unusual shops like Rhubarb and Custard selling doll's houses bring in the people with money who still have a stong sense of adventure. They love Ulverston when they find it and explore the rest of the town and area.
Falstaff - I would hardly call it abuse. Gentle mockery at worst. And as irrelevant as the point is (respect for other people should be the default position, rather than it simply being accrued by having been on the planet for a long time) I suspect Geoff didn't do a lot of fighting for his country in WWII, what with him being a child at the time.
Geoff mocks and disparages the Knowhere lot just as much as they do him; it's banter, and it would be a pretty sad world if being 75 years old automatically excluded you from that.
And as for Patsy and Izzy, as the saying used to go 'I'll show my *rse in Woolies window' if either actually exists. Dried tarantula pot holders indeed...
Yes, the finished cobbles look great but if they take as long to complete the next section as the previous ones took there will be more shop closures. In an already difficult climate the local shops are being put under immense pressure. If the pace was being set by the actual workload then shop keepers wouldn't be so angry, but when no work is being done (rarely see workmen after lunch) then it's time to ask why.
Well Geoff old bean what do you think now that the setts in Market St have been finished?
Honest opinion and not your usual inflamatory clap trap.
OK it has taken an unacceptable length of time,not CCC's fault but the fault of the AMEY estimator.
However the workmen have made a great job and the quality is second to none. I beleive that there have been complaints about levels. Well is it better to have level setts or back to the old puddles?
Roll on the next phase when the rest will be finished and Ulverston can be proud of its Market area.
Your old sparring partner,
The Rev.
Reply please ASAP.
A quick response is that the cobbles are looking good.
It is satisfying that they responded to our (through Cllr James Airey) pointing out that the upper section was too near the level of the curb by immediately dropping the level by a couple of inches.
This means to any boy racers going down Market Street will be able to become air-borne at adequate speeds.
If they can find one of them less than 2 inch 'thick' they could practice jumping over them at speed.
We await a downpour to see whether Highways have gooffed and now have to raise the pavements to prevent flooding of the shops!
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